NEWSLETTER
THE HISTORY OF DESIGN
VOL 3 NO 2 SUMMER 2016
AND CURATORIAL STUDIES
IN THIS ISSUE:
Lee B. Anderson Memorial Foundation 1, 8 Museum News
MA PROGRAM IN
1, 6-8
Commencement 2016
2
Goings on in the MA Program
3
New Faces 3 Student Profile
4
Objective 2
4
Alumni News
5
Alumni Profile
5
Library News
8
Art Deco Society
9
HDCS Summer Courses Abroad 10-11 Letter From Paris
12
From the Archives
13
Alumni Trip
14
STUDENTS BENEFIT FROM LEE B. ANDERSON MEMORIAL FOUNDATION FUNDING The MA Program has received generous funding from the Lee B. Anderson Memorial Foundation, whose mission is to support programs that advance the understanding of, and appreciation for, the decorative arts. Lee B. Anderson (19182010), was one of the foremost collectors of American Gothic Revival Furniture. An art education teacher, his love for the Gothic Style began after serving in World War II when he visited Strawberry Hill, Horace Walpole’s 18th century Gothic villa in England. Anderson began collecting Romantic Era paintings in the 1950s and by
the 1970s, he had amassed and important and remarkable collection of Gothic Revival furniture and decorative arts, at a time when the style was Cabinet Cup and Saucer, Jean-Claude Rumeau, early 19th c. out of fashion. From the Estate of Lee B. Anderson. Image: Doyle. His townhouse served as a meeting point for the Anderson collection was curators, authors, collectors, included in the landmark 1976 fashion designers and celebexhibition, The Gothic Revival rities. Its opulently decorated Style in America, 1830-1870, rooms were published in The at the Museum of Fine Arts, Magazine Antiques, House and Houston. Garden, The World of Interiors, and others. Furniture from Continued on page 8
COOPER HEWITT MUSEUM NEWS 17th Annual National Design Awards On May 5, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Director Caroline Baumann announced the winners of the 2016 National Design Awards, recognizing excellence and innovation across a variety of disciplines in 11 categories. Now in its 17th year, the annual awards were established to promote design as a vital humanistic tool in
shaping the world. The award recipients will be honored at a gala dinner Thursday, Oct. 20, at the Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden at Cooper Hewitt. This year’s recipients are: Moshe Safdie for Lifetime Achievement; Make It Right for Director’s Museum News continues on page 6
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MA PROGRAM IN THE HISTORY OF DESIGN AND CURATORIAL STUDIES
SCENES FROM COMMENCEMENT 2016 Congratulations to the winter and spring 2016 graduates: Naromie Andre Sam Bigio Charlotte Brody Mae Colburn Kira Faiman Allison Grimes Villy Kontonikolaki Adrienne Meyer Sakura Nomiyama Catherine Powell Susan Teichman Nancy Till Claire Waugh Samantha Wiley ▲ New graduates Nancy Till, Mae Colburn, Catherine Powell, Sakura Nomiyama, Susan Teichman, Samantha Wiley and Naromie Andre at the ADHT Graduate Programs Commencement ► Profs. Hazel Clark, Heike Jenss, Sarah Lichtman, Rachel Lifter, Rosemary O’Neill, David Brody and Prof. Marilyn Cohen and students Gretchen Von Koenig, Narender Strong and Rayna Wang at the Graduates and Alumni Reception
Christina Moon at the New School Commencement
Naromie Andre, Sakura Nomiyama and friends at the alumni Cooper Hewitt Director Caroline Baumann toasts the students and alumni of the MA Program in the Great Hall
collection tour
COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM
NEWSLETTER 3 GOINGS ON IN THE MA PROGRAM Showing Off The theme of the twenty-fifth annual spring symposium this year was “Showing Off: Design and Ostentation.” Kicking things off on April 7 was the Catherine Hoover Voorsanger memorial keynote address delivered by Ulysses Grant Dietz, Chief Curator and Curator of Decorative Arts at the Newark Museum. Dietz gave an engaging talk about the renowned jewelry collection at the Newark Museum, focusing on how materials, both highly precious and inherently worthless, become ornament and accrue meanings. The Newark Museum is re-installing its jewelry based on material themes, a
Garland Light, 2002. Designed by Tord Boontje. Manufactured by Artecnica. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, Gift of Artecnica. 2007-38-2.
Design Horizons On May 12-13, over 28 students from the Fashion Studies, Design Studies, and History of Design & Curatorial Studies programs presented at the annual Parsons Festival ADHT Graduate Student Symposium. The theme this year was Design Horizons because of the groundbreaking and boundary pushing work that the students presented. Topics ranged from Vogue dancing and fringe cultures to quilts as agitprop and even included a spirited talk on fear and queering in Marilyn Manson’s oeuvre. Because of the number of
submissions, the afternoon sessions were formatted in the PechaKucha style, developed in 2001 by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Klein Dytham Architecture in Tokyo. Each student was given seven minutes to present their projects, resulting in an exciting buzz of ideas that highlighted the crossroads of research taking place. The variety of research presented shows the breadth and depth of the kinds of things ADHT students are pursuing. This symposium was an important connecting element for the three ADHT programs and it sparked dialogues amongst
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project aided by the MA Program’s own Susan Teichman, who interned with Dietz. The student papers delivered the next day investigated ostentation in design and decorative arts from the 17th century to the 20th. Among the emerging scholars presenting, was student Catherine Powell, who discussed the great tapestry series of the life of Alexander, designed by Charles le Brun for Louis XIV in the late 17th century, the subject of her MA thesis. Powell showed how, in both material and iconography, as well as its afterlife in several re-weavings,
colleagues about research that is needed and horizons that need to be explored.
the series’ ostentation served to further the king’s political ambitions. Also presenting were graduate students from the University of Missouri, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, MIT, the University of Maryland, and Hunter College.
NEW FACES: We’re pleased to welcome Natalia Dare as the new Program Administrator. Natalia replaces Yim Lin, who has taken over administration for the Natalia Dare undergraduate first-year curriculum and the Humanities Action Lab at Parsons. Natalia received a liberal arts degree from Soka University of America in 2011, and completed her MA in Cultural and Creative Industries at King’s College London in 2014. She most recently completed a handful of internships and short-term roles at various arts and cultural organizations, including the Clore Leadership Programme, Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, and Japan Society Gallery. Natalia is looking forward to getting to know the students and alumni.
Student Chanel Host presenting at the Parsons Festival ADHT Graduate Student Symposium
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STUDENT PROFILE: CATHERINE POWELL When delivering a speech on behalf of the graduating class (MA in the History of Design and Curatorial Studies) at the May 19th ADHT recognition ceremony, Catherine Powell described herself as “an outsider”, referring to her unconvenCatherine Powelll tional background. Indeed, until the beginning of August 2014, Catherine had been practicing as a civil litigator in Canada for several years. An economics undergraduate, she had developed a practice focused on commercial litigation and environmental regulatory law. With no
background in art or art history, Catherine’s long-held passion nevertheless lay in the history of art and design. With the support, encouragement, and insistence of her younger sister, she reached out to Dr. Sarah A. Lichtman to inquire about the MA Program, and decided on the spot to follow her heart. In a matter of weeks, Catherine transferred her legal practice, sold her apartment in Toronto, and convinced her father to drive her and her cat to New York City. In her first semester, Catherine discovered Renaissance tapestries and began to investigate issues surrounding design, patronage, and production. Tapestry remained with her throughout the Program, and she explored the question of design reproduc-
tion in her MA Thesis, entitled “Charles Le Brun and the Replicas of ‘The Triumphs of Alexander’: Extending a Reputation through Weaving and Print.” Catherine will pursue her research in art history, focusing on the Northern Renaissance, at the University of Texas at Austin, where she will be undertaking her PhD. From the outset, Catherine was eager to make up for lost time, and said “yes” to as many opportunities as possible: attending lectures, interning at the Cooper Hewitt Library, being a fellow in the Product Design and Decorative Arts Department of the Museum, being a research and teaching assistant, and being the editor-in-chief for the second issue of Objective (see below). At graduation, Catherine received departmental honors for her academic achievements and the Outstanding Graduate award for her commitment to the MA Program.
SECOND ISSUE OF MA STUDENT JOURNAL OBJECTIVE ARRIVES
Student Research
The second issue of Objective: Journal of the History of Design and Curatorial Studies, was launched on April 7, 2016. Objective is a journal run by students in the MA Program, with the guidance of Dr. Marilyn Cohen, who acts as faculty advisor, and publishes the work of current students and alumni from the program. This year’s edition includes essays, reviews, interviews, and
Check out current student Bill Shaffer’s article on Dutch modernist graphic designer, Willem Sandberg in Design Observer: http://designobserver.com/feature/willem-sandberg/39319.
perspectives on a range of topics that varies widely across media, geography, and temporal boundaries. Objective contains essays that will take you from the Reformed Dutch churches of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to twentieth-century Mexican photojournalism and British film culture; and reviews of contemporary books, exhibitions in Paris and Seoul, and a Broadway play whose protagonist is a young man living with Asperger’s Syndrome. The issue also includes an interview with Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum assistant curator and alumna Andrea Lipps, who provides terrific insight into the Beauty Design Triennial. Please contact the MA Program Office for your copy of Objective.
Willem Sandberg, avantgardecahier 1: open ovog (1946)
COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM
NEWSLETTER 5 ALUMNI NEWS
ALUMNI PROFILE: P J CARLINO
Meri Horn (2007) is now director of the National Jewelery Institute (NJI). In July she participated in a gala at the Louvre in Paris, organized by the NJI, and co-hosted by Burak Cakmak, Dean of the School of Fashion at Parsons and Princess Camilla of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.
I’ve had a life-long fascination with history, product design and manufacturing. Prior to enrolling in the MA program, I received a BFA from Parsons School of Design and had a career as a cabinetmaker and designer of retail fixtures. I taught furniture design at Parsons and then for a number of years served as Director of Administration before returning to teaching in the senior studio and other courses in Product Design. In 2012 I received an MA P.J. Carlino in the History of Decorative Arts and Design from the Parsons School of Design/Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum after completing my thesis “Enduring Furniture at an Affordable Price: Reconstructing Nineteenth-Century Business Models.” While in the MA program I gained valuable professional experience by co-curating the exhibit “Inspiring Women: Selected Designers from Parsons’ Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Archives” and by completing a Windgate Fellowship in contemporary craft at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. After an inspiring conversation with Dr. Marilyn Cohen, and with the support of many of the MA professors, I entered the PhD program in American & New England Studies at Boston University where I’ve been
Shelly Selim (2013) will shortly be starting her new job as Associate Curator of Design and Decorative Arts at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, which has a wonderful contemporary design collection and operates the Eero Saarinen-designed Miller House. Ghenete Zelleke (1987) has been named as the new James Ford Bell curator of decorative arts and sculpture and head of the department of decorative arts, textiles, and sculpture at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Ghenete will be moving from her current position as the Samuel and M. Patricia Grober Curator of European Decorative Arts at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she has worked since 1998. She is responsible for a variety of exhibitions at the AIC including “Charles Rennie Mackintosh,” “Eighteenth-Century French Vincennes-Sèvres Porcelain,” and “Arts and Crafts in Vienna: Furniture Designed by Josef Hoffmann.”
BEAUTY This spring, MA Program alumni were treated to a curator-led tour of “Beauty—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial,” the museum’s fifth in its series of major surveys of contemporary design. The exhibition, Curator Ellen Lupton with MA students at the Design Triennial on view through Aug. 21, celebrates design intricate, ethereal, transgresas a creative endeavor that sive, emergent, elemental and engages the mind, body, and transformative. It features more senses.Organized by Assistant than 250 works, ranging from Curator and MA Program alumna experimental prototypes and Andrea Lipps (2008) and Senior interactive games to fashion Curator of Contemporary Design ensembles and architectural Ellen Lupton, the exhibition interventions, by 63 designers explores beauty through seven from all over the world, with a thematic lenses: extravagant, focus on aesthetic innovation.
PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN
able to deepen my research in material culture. While at B. U. I participated in a year-long National Endowment for the Humanities seminar on planning, completed a fellowship from Winterthur Museum cataloging Boston-made furniture as part of the Boston Furniture Archive, and served as Editorial Assistant on Buildings and Landscapes the journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum. This past spring I was the Graduate Student Coordinator of The Dynamic City: Futures for the Past, a 2-day conference on historic Preservation and the future of cities. I’m currently completing a prospectus for my dissertation which will investigate modernization and the roots of industrial design in the late nineteenth century through an examination of the contract furniture industry. The knowledge and enthusiasm of the professors and students in the MA program, and the rigorous demands of completing a thesis under Dr. Barry Harwood provided me with the tools I needed to more actively participate in teaching and to succeed in my research. I plan to return to teaching design and history in the near future, as well as participating in various public history projects.
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MA PROGRAM IN THE HISTORY OF DESIGN AND CURATORIAL STUDIES
MUSEUM NEWS Continued from page 1 Award; Bruce Mau for Design Mind; Center for Urban Pedagogy for Corporate and Institutional Achievement; Marlon Blackwell Architects for Architecture Design; Geoff McFetridge for Communication Design; Opening Ceremony for Fashion Design; Tellart for Interaction Design; Studio O+A for Interior Design; Hargreaves Associates for Landscape Architecture; and Ammunition for Product Design. “The National Design Awards are a vibrant component of Cooper Installation view of “Energizing the Everyday: Gifts from the George R. Kravis II Collection.” Photo by Matt Flynn © Smithsonian Institution Hewitt’s education arm through which the museum Lifetime Achievement nominees org/events. radios to furniture—alongside engages year round with design must have been practicing contextual works drawn from lovers of all ages across the professionally for a minimum the museum’s collection. Highlights of United States and throughout of 20 years. Winners are Additional exhibitions on view Permanent the world,” Baumann said. selected based on the level in the second-floor galleries Collection Featured dedicated to the permanent “This year’s class of winners of excellence, innovation and reflect design’s remarkable public impact of their body of collection include “Passion for in a Series of New empathy for contemporary work. Unlike the jury-selected the Exotic: Louis Comfort Tiffany Exhibitions social concerns: from promoting awards, the Director’s Award is and Lockwood de Forest” in workplace productivity to prechosen by Baumann and given Cooper Hewitt’s renovation, the Teak Room; “Hewitt Sisters serving vernacular traditions to to an individual or organization completed in 2014, allows for Collect: Tiles and Ironwork,” encouraging civic engagement. in recognition of outstanding the museum’s rich and diverse featuring concentrated displays These designers and design support and patronage within collection of 210,000 historof tiles and ironwork; and “Fragile firms cross disciplinary boundar- the design community. ical and contemporary design Beasts,” a display of nearly 75 ies, explore innovative materials The winners will be honored objects to be exhibited as never grotesque ornament prints and develop new models of at a gala during National Design before. and drawings from the 16th problem-solving in pursuit of Week, Oct. 15–23. Launched “Energizing the Everyday: and 17th centuries featuring these goals.” in 2006, this educational Gifts from the George R. Kravis fantastical creatures. A jury of design leaders and initiative makes great design II Collection,” which opened April educators from across the widely accessible to the public 28, celebrates the exceptional “Energizing The Everyday: country reviewed submissions through interactive events and gifts from the collector to CooGifts From The George R. resulting from nominations programs for students, teachper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Kravis Ii Collection” submitted by the general public. ers, corporate professionals, Museum. On view through March “‘Energizing the Everyday’ Individual nominees must have designers and Cooper Hewitt’s 2017, the exhibition displays celebrates a remarkable gift been practicing professionally dedicated audience. Programs some of the most important from a preeminent collector of for a minimum of seven years; will be posted at cooperhewitt. modernist objects—from industrial design, George Kravis,”
COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM
NEWSLETTER 7 MUSEUM NEWS said Caroline Baumann, director of Cooper Hewitt. “George’s generosity, along with his passion and keen eye for collecting, bolsters Cooper Hewitt’s holdings as one of the foremost industrial design collections in the United States.” “Energizing the Everyday” recognizes the collecting vision of Kravis and its synergy with Cooper Hewitt’s broad and diverse collection of modern and contemporary design. An early interest in records and a background in broadcasting inform Kravis’ enthusiasm for and knowledge of radios, televisions and technology. As Kravis’ passion for design grew, he expanded his collecting efforts beyond American electronic devices to include industrial design and furnishings for the home and office from the United States, Europe and Asia. This
exhibition features highlights of the Kravis collection dating from the early 20th century to the present. From lighting and furniture to tableware, textiles and office equipment, the exhibition makes visual and material connections across time and geography. As a collector, Kravis is interested in the object’s purpose, form, manufacture and materials while also considering the user and the design process. The design of these objects enhanced the day-to-day endeavors of the home and workplace, as well as travel and leisure activities. The rigid geometry of Norman Bel Geddes’s 1935 skyscraper-like Manhattan Cocktail Set, the humor of Cesare Cassati’s and C. Emanuele Ponzio’s 1968 Pillola Lamps and the social concerns reflected in Olafur Eliasson’s Little Sun Solar-Powered LED
Lantern of 2012 are among the many historic and contemporary themes evoked in “Energizing the Everyday.” A related publication, 100 Designs for a Modern World, Skira Rizzoli, April 2016, focuses on Kravis’ collection as a whole and serves as an accessible reference on industrial design in the 20th and early 21st centuries.
“Passion For The Exotic: Louis Comfort Tiffany And Lockwood De Forest” This exhibition in the “Passion for the Exotic” series highlights works by Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933) in the context of the Carnegie Mansion’s Teak Room designed by Tiffany’s former business partner Lockwood de Forest (1850–1932) in 1902. Alongside a Tiffany dragonfly lamp owned by the Carnegie family and important loans of a Daffodil lamp, an inkwell box and a fire screen on loan from the collection of Richard H. Driehaus and a turtleback chandelier lent by Macklowe Gallery, this installation gives the visitor an opportunity to experience the interplay of Tiffany and de Forest’s designs as would Installation view of “Passion for the Exotic: Louis Comfort Tiffany and Lockwood de Forest.” Photo by Matt Flynn have been © 2016 Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN
Print, Plate from the Series Ornamenti o grottesche (Ornaments or Grotesques), ca. 1653; Stefano della Bella (Italian, 1610–1664); Etching on paper; Purchased for the Museum by the Advisory Council; 1921-6-152-1. Photo: Matt Flynn © Smithsonian Institution
possible in Andrew Carnegie’s era. Tiffany’s tireless experimentation with new materials, motifs and radiant hues is explored through a range of glass production. He was fascinated with many of the objects that he and de Forest brought back from the Middle East, and that de Forest sent from India. Both men delighted in pattern, as can be seen by the harmonious combination of Tiffany’s work in de Forest’s setting.
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MUSEUM NEWS “Fragile Beasts” “Fragile Beasts” (on view through January 2017) features nearly 75 grotesque ornament prints and drawings from the 16th and 17th centuries showing how artists turned elements from nature into otherworldly beings. The exhibition highlights rarely seen works on paper from Cooper Hewitt’s permanent collection and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Library’s rare book collection. Creatures, fearsome or playful, graceful or rigid, take their place in dense and sinuous designs for locks, ewers, rings, tapestries, stained glass and more. These intimately scaled works, often measuring just a few inches, are at times
LIBRARY NEWS erotically charged and at others moralizing. Centuries later, these drawings and prints open a window to the imagination of artists and designers as the Age of Exploration unfolded around them. An accompanying coloring book is published by Cooper Hewitt and distributed in the U.S. by Artbook | D.A.P and worldwide by Thames & Hudson UK. Edited by Caitlin Condell and illustrated by Magali An Berthon, the coloring book is filled with hidden monsters and sleeping serpents, chimeras, dragons and gargoyles inspired by grotesque ornament prints from the Italian and Northern Renaissance. Retail: $12.95.
LEE B. ANDERSON FOUNDATION Continued from page 1 After his death the collection was sold to benefit the Lee B. Anderson Memorial Foundation. The Foundation provides grants for students studying an area of 19th-century decorative arts, and a separate travel fund helps support student participation in our summer courses abroad. This year we were pleased to be able to fund Anna Rasche, who is writing her thesis on Dreicer & Company, one of the most successful and least-known jewelry houses of Victorian America; Claire Waugh, studying for exams in British visual and material culture of the 19th century; Samantha Wiley,
who is preparing for exams on 19th-century American Furniture; and first-year student Catherine Acosta, who is interested in studying Moorish influences on Gothic Revival and the Aesthetic Movement. The Foundation also awarded funds to incoming student Ria Murray for her work on 19th-century decorative arts and design. The summer travel grants went to Amanda Kogle, Rachel Hunnicutt, Tayna Piacentini, and Catherine Powell, who are attending our courses in Berlin and Paris. Congratulations to the students, and our thanks to the Lee B. Anderson Memorial Foundation for its generous support.
2016 Digitization of the Library’s M.Thérèse Bonney collection
ranging from her well documented pavilions of the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Décoratifs to children’s barber shops and storefronts displaying books. The images –through Bonney’s
The Smithsonian Women’s Committee awarded the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Library a grant to fund the digitization of 4,650 rare 8” x 10” black and white photographs in the M. Thérèse Bonney Collection housed at the library. This project has been a long time in the works, and is finally becoming a reality, and it will be terrific. This collection is very heavily usedParis, France, 1925-30. “L’Escargot d’Or,” Golden Snail by researchers, insignia, advertising that the establishment or shop the for exhibitions sign is sponsored by offers escargot.. M. Thérèse Bonney and publications. Preparing for digiti- Collection zation isn’t always a simple task- caption information captions- are well documented and other identifying informa– she notes not only that it is tion is needed to make the a dining room interior but also images accessible. During the who designed the wallpaper, past Fall and Spring semesters, furniture, artwork and carpets. several of our Masters’ Program Bonney captured images of library student workers went decorative arts and architecture through all the boxes of images, that are an important visual and worked on spreadsheets documentation of little photoThe goals of digitization are graphed subjects or structures two-fold: to ensure their that no longer exist during preservation and safety as well this time period of Art Deco in as to make these rare images France. Doorways, ceramics and accessible online to researchers glassware, barbershops, jewelry, worldwide lighting, gardens- the list goes The charm of the collection on and on. The images themis in the diversity of subjects selves capture Bonney’s artistic
COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM
NEWSLETTER 9 MA PROGRAM PARTNERS WITH THE ART DECO SOCIETY view of design objects and the visual world, and demonstrate Bonney’s unique creative style and eye for details of everyday life. Stay tuned for when the Bonney collection goes online!
In March, the Art Deco Society and Parsons School line, texture and sparing, highly graphic decoration. of Art and Design History and Theory (ADHT) In her lecture, Kolosek displayed a wide range sponsored a lecture of Bonney’s work, images that by alumna Lisa provided those outside of Jazz Age Schlansker Kolosek Paris with a glimpse into the culturon the life and al capital of the Jazz Age. Dazcareer of American zlingly well connected, Bonney’s photojournalist M. photos read like a who’s-who of Smithsonian Thérèse Bonney Art Deco and Moderne icons, from Institution (1894-1978) and Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann, to Jean Libraries Internship her collection of Dunand, Le Corbusier and more. over 4,000 photoKolosek the author of The Catherine Acosta, a first year graphs held at the Invention of Chic: Thérèse Bonney student in the master’s program, research library and Paris Moderne (Thames & has been selected to be an SIL of Cooper Hewitt, Hudson, 2002), articles about intern working this summer in Smithsonian Design 20th-century design luminaries Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Museum. [see such as interior architect Joseph Design Library. Catherine will be Library News on the Aronson, and a number of exhibiconducting research on select previous page about tions for the National Museum of drawings and photographs of a new grant to digiDance. She is currently at work on Alumni Lisa Schlansker Kolosek and Jared Goss, member lighting fixtures in the art deco tize the M. Thérèse a book about American art critic of the Board of Directors, Art Deco Society of New York, style that were designed by the Bonney collection.] Helen Appleton Read. with MA Program Director Sarah A. Lichtman New York firm of E.F. Caldwell & This extraordinary Co. in the 1920s-1940s. Her archive chronicles modern design in all its forms research featuring an estimated in 1920s and 1930s Paris including internation60 fixtures with illustrations al expositions and annual salon installations, from the library’s collection will interiors of private homes and public spaces, be accessible via the library’s decorative arts, and architecture. The Bonney dedicated Caldwell website: collection is one of the most important doclibrary.si.edu/digital-library/ umentations of the Art Deco era that exists collection/caldwell. today. Bonney was one of many bright young Americans drawn to Paris in the 1920s. After all, this was an exciting moment in design: French Art Deco, still at its height, was increasingly being challenged by the more austere aesthetics of Modernism. She was enthralled not only by commercial and decorative arts but also by fashion and beauty. Bonney photographed department stores and beauty salons, posters and Spiral staircase in the atelier-home of sculptors Joël and Jan Martel, packaging, restaurants and (10, rue Mallet-Stevens), by architect Robert Mallet-Stevens, ca. nightclubs. Her works exemCeiling fixture for Rockefeller Center, by Caldwell & Company, 1927. Thérèse Bonney Collection, SST032. Smithsonian Libraries. plify the period’s emphasis on 1932. Smithsonian Libraries. NK2115.5.L5 S54
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2000-42-1
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HDCS SUMMER COURSES ABROAD Exploring German Decorative Arts, Berlin, June 20 – July 1, 2016
ité Le Corbusier, Un rlin Be n, tio ita d’Hab
At the Neues Muse
um, Berlin
At the Bauhaus
Students and frie
nds at lunch
COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM
NEWSLETTER 11 HDCS SUMMER COURSES ABROAD The Period Room as Curatorial Practice, Paris, July 11–29, 2016
At the Musee Nissim de Camondo
Students explore
Prof. Ulrich Leben dis de Soubise
cussing gilding and
carving techniques
at the Hôtel
At the Maison de Verre
PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN
ison La Roche. Le Corbusier’s Ma
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MA PROGRAM IN THE HISTORY OF DESIGN AND CURATORIAL STUDIES
A LETTER FROM PARIS : INTRODUCING OLIVER GRANEY Oliver Graney is a graduating MA student from Parsons Paris. He came to Paris after completing his BA at Binghamton University SUNY. He’ll be returning to the States this summer to complete an internship at the Museum of Modern Art in the Architecture and Design department under the supervision of Paola Antonelli. He wrote his thesis on William Morris’s 1890 utopian novel News from Nowhere, and the way it can be used to retroactively apply expanded definitions of design, as well as the relevance of the text to contemporary design practice. Why did you decide to study at Parsons Paris? I’m originally from New York so when I was looking for graduate school opportunities I knew I wanted to study somewhere completely different. Parsons Paris guaranteed some semblance of familiarity because it is an American school but I would be able to study in an environment completely new and foreign to me. What activities did you participate in at Parsons Paris? While at Parsons Paris I participated in several of the exhibitions in the school gallery. Last year I presented at our Student Symposium and I also began my own reading circle for graduate students to discuss design history and theory. This year I organized the second iteration of our student symposium, entitled “Bread, Politics and Other Polemics” at which I presented a chapter of my thesis.
amazing opportunities for my MA thesis including staging an exhibition and including me in the MFA senior thesis show. I recently returned from a research trip to the British Library in London which was generously funded by a travel grant through the program.
How did living and studying in Paris affect your experience? Living in Paris has been great because it has forced me to be more self-aware. It has allowed me to access some amazing libraries and the museums are a constant source of inspiration when looking for new avenues of research. It also helps that Paris is such a central hub of Europe because it means that I can see exhibitions or travel to libraries in other countries with much less difficulty than if I was back in the States. Did you have any internship experience? While here I have had two internships. Last summer, I interned with Juliette Pollet, the curator of design at the Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP), which is a national collection of contemporary art and design. Currently I am interning at Domaine de Boisbuchet, an arts and culture center in the southwest of France where I am helping to curate the summer exhibition. How would you describe your experience at Parsons Paris?
One of a kind. It’s unlike any other school I’ve been to because of the close relationships you can establish with faculty and the intimacy at a small school allows you to really get to know all about your fellow students (and future colleagues). Last year, we took a trip to Milan for the Salone del Mobile which was an amazing opportunity to see the largest and most important fair for the design industry. This year, we travelled to Brussels to see the opening of a new design museum, the Art and Design Atomium Museum (ADAM) where one of our professors gave us a private tour of the collection and the opening exhibition she curated. What unique opportunities have you had studying at Parsons Paris? The faculty have put me in contact with professionals in the field with whom I never would have otherwise been able to meet. Additionally, the school has facilitated some
What is the subject of your MA thesis? My MA thesis looks at the 1890 utopian novel News from Nowhere by the British designer William Morris and uses it as a lens through which to understand contemporary expanded definitions of design. I’m also looking at the contemporary relevance of Morris’s specific brand of design-influenced revolutionary socialism and how designers are engaging with and interpreting his legacy. What are your plans after graduation? This summer I’ll be moving back to New York to begin an internship at the Museum of Modern Art in the Architecture and Design department. I’ll be doing research on an upcoming exhibition called “Items: Is Fashion Modern?”.
COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM
NEWSLETTER 13 FROM THE ARCHIVES The MA Program was already over 15 years old when it was profiled in the winter 1998 edition of the Cooper Hewitt Magazine. You might recognize some of your fellow alumni in the article.
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SAVE THE DATE: ALUMNI TRIP TO STORM KING ART CENTER SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 25, 2016 This fall, join fellow alumni on an excursion to Storm King Art Center, one of the world’s leading sculpture parks. It is located only one hour north of New York City, in the lower Hudson Valley, where its 500-acre landscape of fields, hills, and woodlands provides the setting for a collection of more than 100 carefully sited sculptures created by some of the most acclaimed artists of our time. $25 per person, includes admission, lunch and transportation. Contact Natalia Dare (daren@newschool.edu) to reserve your spot. Space is limited!
COOPER HEWITT
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Smithsonian Design Museum Smithsonian
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum